I love the internet. I love having access to all the information. I love having access to all my friends, at any time, even though they all live far away. I love how it has shrunk our world and brings us all closer together.

But every now and then, I just don’t want to deal with it. There’s so many emails to read, so many new blog posts, so much drama on Facebook.

I made a new friend the other day, and she came over with her daughter for a playdate today. Maybe the opportunity to interact with a real live human is why I’m not feeling the internet.

Don’t worry, I’m definitely not bailing out entirely. After all, there’s all those blogs to read. 🙂

I’m not Jewish. Never have been and presumably never will be. So why, you may ask, am I writing about one of the High Holy days?

Well, it has to do with my deep love for autumn. In the early days of autumn, as the air cools, the apple harvest comes in, and the leaves begin to turn, I feel like I come alive. I can’t explain it. I feel like this lovely time of year is much nicer and way more logical for a New Year than the middle of dreary winter (ahem, Gregorian calendar).
I can’t even attempt to claim to “observe” the holiday. I mostly just hijack it as a great excuse to make delicious bread and eat apples. I began this “tradition” last year in fact. I was (and am) a fervent reader of the blog Shiksa in the Kitchen, and her posts about holiday food enticed and inspired me. It’s just a coincidence that it fit so well with my own feelings about the season.

I’m celebrating today by making and consuming a delicious Challah bread, eating apples with honey, and drinking kosher wine. I won’t tell you the rest of my meal because it’s positively blasphemous. 😉

I’m knee-deep in this giant “tapestry” (actually a needlepoint or maybe a needlepaint). It’s a stained-glass scene from Zelda. I found the pattern on Sprite Stitch a while back and couldn’t resist it. Its on teeny tiny Aida cloth, contains almost 100 colors, and is 158 x 237 (stitches). It’s not huge in physical dimensions, but that’s a lotttt of stitches. It’s turning out really well, although I did encounter a problem over the weekend.

I’m a firm believer in the quote “have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” Google tells me that William Morris is the originator of that quote, but no matter who said it, the idea rings true. I do not believe in crafting for crafting’s sake, but I do believe in making the objects in my home both beautiful and useful. One problem I face in my home is that there really isn’t a lot of geeky stuff (aka, stuff that I enjoy looking at and find beautiful), so I feel like it doesn’t reflect myself very well. I’m working on that. I have a running list of projects I’m itching to make (and I am always pinning more).

I also have some strictly useful things I’d like to make, but there’s no reason they can’t be beautiful too! I am hoping to start making a large dent in all these to-dos soon. 🙂

Autumn blew in with a vengeance the other day, and I am SO excited. The autumn months are my absolute favorites of the year, and I love living in a place that actually gets them! (Ahem, Texas.)

I know I’ve been MIA around the blog lately. It’s been nuts around my house. After our vacation, I was a little burnt out on crafting and took a few days completely off. I also had SEO writing to do by the end of that month. My husband left shortly after that for a training exercise in California, and that kind of thing always causes upheavals.

I’ve been fighting to get back into the swing of things here at home. I still haven’t done my listings for the month, but I actually do have a number of cool products ready to list. The house is kindof a mess as usual, ugh.
I’ve been buried in a huge needlepoint project. I keep having to stop and take a day off because I’m giving myself hand and shoulder cramps! It’s turning out awesome, though – I’m super excited to share some photos of it soon.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my “blogging identity” lately. I want this blog to be a place where I’m real about my life. Sometimes I feel inhibited by all the other voices out there in the blogging world, but I’m trying to ignore them. I want to be able to share my life here. I don’t want to focus just on crafts or food, and I really don’t want this to be a “life blog” where I talk about my kid or the military. I don’t enjoy reading those blogs unless I know the person, and I don’t feel comfortable sharing my personal life anyway. I’m really hoping to share more here, but there may be more short posts than before.

I did a little re-organizing of my Google Reader recently, and I’m working on catching up on all that reading. I’m hoping to restart my Web Roundups soon! I’m thinking that I will shift my focus a bit more tightly onto the crafts and food, and not share as many random articles and the like. We’ll see, right?

Hmm, not sure what else to say! I’m just so excited about autumn. 🙂 I’m thinking about having a celebratory giveaway! What kind of thing would you like to see me give away?